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Feschuk: Schenn made it to NHL the old-fashioned way

Luke Schenn, the Leafs defenceman from Saskatoon, learned to play the game he loves on frozen prairie backyards, thawing his numb toes in the bathtub before bedtime.

It’s the way sporting romantics like to think all NHLers grow up, in the grand tradition of Saskatchewan legends from Gordie Howe to Wendel Clark. But the path to the pros isn’t always traced as pure as the Western snow. Many of today’s players, and certainly tomorrow’s hopefuls, learn at the feet (and pay the hefty hourly fee) of power-skating instructors and shooting gurus and other alleged holders of the keys to the millionaires’ kingdom. Many of today’s hockey parents sign cheques to personal trainers for their triple-A teens and pre-teens.

As a kid, Schenn, now 21, knew little of that hyper-coached culture. The foundation of his on-ice education was poured on the homemade rinks of Saskatoon’s Hurley Crescent. There was one pad behind his family’s house, fashioned by his firefighter father Jeff, that came complete with floodlights and boards. There were also, Schenn estimates, five or six more slabs of ice belonging to friends within walking distance. Perhaps not surprisingly, the street on which Schenn grew up counts itself as the childhood stomping grounds of a decent number of accomplished prospects, closest among them Luke’s brother Brayden, a forward in the Philadelphia Flyers organization.

“A lot of people these days are putting their kids in power skating, all that stuff. I didn’t really do any of that,” Schenn was saying this week. “Backyard hockey, for us, was the big thing. My brother did it every day from right after school until late. ... It’s not because you have to do it, or because your dad is pushing you out there. It’s because you love it.”

Certainly the game seems to be loving Luke Schenn back of late. When the puck drops on Thursday night at the Air Canada Centre, it’ll mark his fourth season opener as a Leaf, the first since he signed a five-year contract last month that will pay him about $3.6 million (U.S.) a season. Those are decent wages for a hard-hitting, stay-at-home defenceman playing in an era in which NHL general managers often covet blueliners with wider skill sets and the league itself is re-examining the parameters of body contact.

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But Schenn, along with being one of the faces of the franchise, is widely admired around the dressing room as a humble leader who does his job well, punishing opponents, blocking shots, earning respect without pretence.

“The best way I can describe him is just honest. He doesn’t cut corners. He hates making mistakes, and he gets on himself if he does,” said James Reimer, the Leafs goaltender. “I know he’ll do everything in his power to get in front of a shot, or to box guys out. ... He’s the kind of player I love to have in front of me.”

It’d be a mistake to confuse Schenn’s home-spun makings with technical imprecision. Perhaps he didn’t spend much time with a power-skating coach as a kid, but he has since logged plenty of hours with various Leafs coaches, including team skating and skills guru Graeme Townshend, in an attempt to improve his speed and efficiency on blades.

“He’ll put in the work. He’ll change as the game changes,” said Ryan Huska, who coached Schenn as a junior with the WHL’s Kelowna Rockets. “He’s a very intelligent player and he always wants to see himself improving.”

Said Schenn: “(Roster) spots come and go pretty easily, so you’ve got to have the work ethic to get better.”

The workday does have its end; Schenn spent part of the offseason on a lake in Kelowna, hanging out with friends and wake surfing, not to mention skating and training with the large cadre of NHLers who call that B.C. city a second home.

Certainly at the root of the work ethic is a love of play. As Rita Schenn, Luke’s mother, was saying this week, philosophizing about what it takes to raise a pair of NHLers: “They’ve got to want it. They’ve got to do things at home. They’ve got to do it themselves. You can’t put them in every camp. Luke and Brayden challenged each other at home, ‘Let’s do 60 sit-ups,’ or ‘Let’s do a run.’ They were constantly out on the driveway in the summer shooting at the nets, or in the winter, playing on the backyard rink. They always wanted to be there. It got to the point some nights where I’d say, ‘Let’s shut off the floodlights because the neighbours are going to get mad.’”

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When the lights go up on Thursday night at the ACC, where the locals are getting restless about a circa-2004 playoff drought, Schenn knows outward displays of anger are only a bad game away. In this city of countless skating gurus, there are no end of self-appointed experts who’ve enlightened Schenn on the state of his craft.

Two seasons ago, when he struggled through many difficult games, Schenn remembered going out for dinner and having random strangers approach him: “They’re like, ‘What’s up with the sophomore jinx? When are you going to figure things out.’”

If Schenn knew anything, growing up the way he did, he knew he had to figure things out for himself.

“You can practise yourself and make it (to the NHL). That’s the way we did it,” Schenn said. “It’s nothing special. There’s hundreds of stories of guys coming from the prairies and doing that. We just followed (that tradition). We did it for fun. If you’re having fun and getting better, that’s all that matters.”

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